About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

Pages

Meta

Racism Will Turn Arizona Into A Police State

The slow creeping fascism of a declining empire will have its most explicit success if Arizona’s Republican governor Jan Brewer signs into law SB 1070. In the video below by Nezua he makes the very good point, where are the libertarians when the government is making it a crime not to have your papers with you at all times and present upon request (principled libertarians who are not racist must surely oppose this, hmmm crickets…). A law whose real intention is to criminalise migrants, both legal and ‘illegal’, it is to make all brown people a suspect.

And below Zack de la Rocha on the law that-

orders immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant laborers or knowingly transport them.

Look at all the wriggle room, it’s a bigot with a badge’s charter.

Amnesty International on the law-

The Arizona House and Senate have passed a bill (SB1070) that would empower police officers to stop and interrogate every individual in the state regarding citizenship status and make it a crime to be an undocumented person in Arizona. If a person does not immediately present documents proving that she is legally in the US, she may be criminally prosecuted, jailed and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. The bill contains no safeguards against racial profiling and increases the likelihood of arbitrary arrest and detention. These are all human rights violations. Because SB1070 has already passed in the Arizona house, it’s next stop is the governor’s office. Tell Governor Jan Brewer to veto the bill. Join activists across the US as they visit the Governor on April 20th to express opposition to this bill.

23 Responses to “Racism Will Turn Arizona Into A Police State”

Hmmm… I wonder what corporations stand to benefit from the process of collecting-up and jailing undocumented people in Arizona. Potentially related question: who underwrote the lobbying for the bill?

I did a quick Google, here’s what came up:

“As a partnership prison, CCA [Corrections Corporations of America] has been credited with helping Pinal County, Arizona, with being ranked No. 1 in a Money Magazine survey ranking the top 25 counties that have experienced the greatest job growth in the past eight years.”

“At least nine deaths occurred at a CCA facility in Eloy, Arizona, and CCA was criticized for their treatment. ”

“Maria del Carmen Garcia-Martinez recently emerged from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding cell in Maricopa County, Arizona, with her arm broken and her hand covered in blue ink. She had been booked for forgery at a Phoenix jail, where six officers twisted her arm after she resisted putting her fingerprint on what she thought was a form that would deport her to Mexico. ”

Corrections Corporation of America “has partnered with the federal government to detain close to 1 million undocumented people in the past 5 years… Thanks to political connections and lobby spending, it dominates the industry of immigrant detention. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand. “

i think is funny another downlow for usa is not getting better sorry this doesn’t look good for another countrys china please help us after that we going to deport you people back for help you whit manpower we take you woman n you kids in, went we get tired we send them back like mexico ok.

It seems to me latent racism of the public enables this kind of law, but I’m not convinced that any surge in racism in Arizona was sufficient to bring about the law. The law is probably more a product of corporatism than racism.

In fact, the corporate interests backing the law are probably content to hear the opposition describe the new law “racist.” The “r” word helps to keep the public — whites and minorities — divided. Largely due to a perception among working-class whites that the word has been overused to the advantage of minorities. Hence, the effect of the “racism” charge is to obscure the law’s first purpose, which isn’t to discriminate but to make money for the booming detention and security industry.

Pull back the curtains and you don’t find a racist, you find a corporation with too-close ties to the state.

is not arizona the problem is the people who run that state neonazis samething happeng in martin luterking day they see black n latino taking over that state is not my is not yours is racist neonazi can’t jump

I don’t think corporate culture in the US is mutually exclusive of racism, it is inherently conservative and unethical particularly in the legal system. So I think it can be due to the profit motive but the corporations following that motive are made up of people, people who are already running a moral deficit so racism, or perhaps more accurately tribalism can inform the operation.

Jotman I agree though that racism is used to divide the working class, in order to keep it engaged in internecine rivalry and not aware of the true source of oppression. At the same time there will be genuine racism going on which is why any social justice movement worth its salt fights on both those fronts. I think maybe race or profit becomes chicken egg argument, they both have their role in making this happen. Judge Andrew Napolitano (eek) did make an interesting claim,http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0424/judge-napolitano-immigration-law-bankrupt-republican-party/
strip away the party political point scoring and it gets a bit weaker but I wonder if a competition between capital blocs will emerge, Arizona will either have to become a prison industrial state to survive this approach or they will have to abandon this path. Will CCA or its ilk win the hand of the state treasury and legislature or will the interest of other businesses and corporations defeat it, in that the attitude to race and liberty will be important. CCA and other incarceration for profit outfits do rely on racism for a large part of their business, the laws and conviction rates clearly show the disproportionate application to non white populations, they have found a way to make money and not challenge structural racism.

I wonder if families that traditionally got rich through slavery now make money in that sector?

Let me put it another way: as a rule, the worst racists are not creative or dynamic members of a society, they are not especially educated, or productive. In other words, they are not the sort of people anyone ought to have cause to give much thought to. We would wish for them to change their views — if only for their own happiness — but in the scheme of things, their views shouldn’t particularly matter to society in the first place.

The corporatist state has made their views important, and deemed these people significant. To some extent the left is fighting a mirage or projection when it commits to waging war on the so-called racist movement.

The question begs to be asked whether a change of strategy is called for.

One trouble with the way the fight has been waged on the anti-racism front, in the US example, is the corporatist-state has proven adept at appropriating the symbols — and even the energies — of this movement. Moreover, it’s corporate arm has funded movements such as the tea party that are magnets for racists and provide racists a political voice they would otherwise lack. The appropriated energies and symbols provide fresh targets for the embittered groups.

The question has to be not just how to fight to keep from losing more ground, but how to win.

“…the corporatist-state has proven adept at appropriating the symbols — and even the energies — of this movement.” Move-On and CodePink come to mind immediately. ‘Liberal’ notoriety, but absolutely a corporatist, elitist agenda.

I think it would be appropriate if the ‘native’ Americans, which include the indigenous peoples from the Mexican-US border, as well as the presumably sovereign (by treaty) tribal nations setup their own ‘checkpoints’ to point out the idiocy and hubris of certain European descendants setting up criteria for national membership in a 200 year old state (of stolen formerly ‘Mexican’ and tribal land)as part of a barely 300 year old country (made up virtually entirely of land stolen from the indigenous inhabitants who were here for 15-18,000 years). Too bad the irony would be lost on most of the people for whom it would do the most good.

Jotman I still think that racism finds it’s way into all strata of society but yes the exposing of the corporate manipulation of dissatisfied misinformed people needs to be countered, the mainstream prog response to tea partiers needs to recognise they do have some valid complaints even if they blame the wrong people for them and the Dems are as wholly owned as the GOP. It’s not good because corrupt liberal/left parties have historically been a major factor creating the climate for successful fascist recruiting. A credible and angry left movement has to emerge to counter the Right’s careful manipulation of people. The Dems are not at this moment it. We have a similar dynamic here, the far right are making gains because the left and progressives have been colonised by neoliberal corporatists.

I don’t know enough about MoveOn to comment, and I believe Code Pink to be the real McCoy. With the Gulf of Mexico turning into a giant oil slick, I believe this observation holds particularly true with regards to some of the big environmental groups. Will these groups finally seize Nature’s momentum and call Obama on his silly excuse for an energy policy?

One thing that happens though in the US context is when the left shows “anger” the right points to that anger and builds a smear campaign around that anger.

I just checked the link I provided above to the Fox news article. The news story I linked to has been almost completely rewritten with a new headline since I last saw it. Fox did not acknowledge any of the “errors” contained in the original report!

Maybe this is a Fox strategy: Fox first prints the story as Fox wished it had happened, and then it sends someone to report what happened.

In both though this phrase sticks out ‘control an unruly group of protesters’ that is not journalism, that is the Ministry of Information conveying the narrative of authority. Of course if Fox agreed with the protests, say a tea party I’m sure the story would bias the other way. (the headline has changed but they repeat the story pretty similarly, have they altered the cache, check it again)

Well MoveOn basically shut up about the wars and torture to get Obama elected, they became a Dem party thing more than a progressive org. Tribalism for the party not ideals.

It will be an interesting case with the environmental groups get the attention and support when/if they oppose a Dem White House. Fox will take any excuse to lie, a cop beats a prisoner and they’ll say the officer’s boot was viciously assaulted by the trouble makers face. So I think you have to not let that limit you otherwise Fox has done its job of managing dissent. But do spend time on a media strategy to counter it.